He won't let me visit his home

[Swimminglikeaswan]

Ok, will try to keep this short. Have been with a lovely guy for six months and things have been going well. He was widowed ten years ago. He also has a 35 year old daughter living at home who contributes nothing despite working full-time and shows no intention of flying the nest. We spend five nights per week together, including weekends, but only ever at my home. The two nights we don't see each other are set in stone by him.
Although i have sat in his car outside of his home when we have picked his daughter up to go to a couple of his family events, i have never been invited to visit. I have told him that i understand that it is lovely for him to have somewhere to go (my place), to chill out and have down-time, but it would be equally nice for me to be able to do the same sometimes. We have had this conversation three or four times and he always gives the excuse that the house is messy and he has decorating that he would like to get done so the place is nice for me to visit. The outside is immaculate so i don't assume the inside is terrible.
He treats me well in all other ways and i adore him, but i am sick of being expected to host and i feel that after six months there should be more transparency.
As the family now know me, i assume there is no-one else involved. The only conclusion which springs to mind is that the place is maybe like some kind of "married" shrine.
I have told him that i can't see how we could form a home-life together in the future with the very co-dependant "third wheel" in tow and, that as lovely as he is, i want a break so we can both think it out as i feel used at this point. I'm gutted.

Ditch him and find a nice man without a third wheel.

Maybe those are the other girlfriend's nights off.

I'm convinced that the house is not his at all. He's basically homeless, which is why he never invites the OP to visit him.

He's using you, I'm sorry! A decent man would at least be funding some of your social life. He's hiding behind his DD, though 6 months is still very early in a relationship.

When is he taking you for a weekend away?!

There's something very fishy about it!

if a person has signed up to be notified if anytime looks at your detail you will get a email telling you that

so it just depends on if someone has signed up for that

It's a real stretch to say he is spending the weekends with another woman while also staying at the OPs, he could be visiting someone like an OW on Mondays and Thursdays who knows what he is up to on those days, he could also be volunteering but keeps his charity work quiet, but few will ever speculate that, it isn't titillating enough. It is, however, very unlikely he is able to reproduce himself like an amoeba and stay in two homes over a weekend though.

I would not be needing to see inside his home because it is his daughter's home too. She is allowed to have memories of her mother around her..
Only once I were engaged, or had some expectation of a genuine permanent relationship, would I be stating where he should live, or where you both should live.

Possibly the daughter will stay living in her family home and you two will need to find something together.

I think you have done the right thing.

Maybe he's been shagging the neighbour for years or something. That might be where he goes on the nights he's not with you - Only joking or...maybe not.

I think they have a freezer in the middle of the lounge covered in flowers.

OP you sound lovely, and you have your head screwed on. I'm glad you've only 'given' this man six months, before realising that the whole situation isn't working for you.

I'm very very curious about the relationships he had after his wife died but before you. Do you know how/why these ended? And I must admit I'd be curious about who owned the house and would be looking at the title on the Land Registry (they don't inform people just for looking at ownership). And possibly 'passing by' on the two sacrosanct days. But I'm insanely curious about the whole thing, and can understand why you wouldn't want to do this! Does he have social media? Does that shed any light?

I hope you make a full recovery

I think the two days he stays home is to keep his DD company, the constant calls/messaging dd does whilst he with op is like he is out being unfaithful. He sounds very weak and loves being fought over, getting sympathy as he tells/hints he is being taken advantage off poor love whilst you wait on him hand and foot and you and his daughter play the pick me game. He is asking you (after only 6 months!) how you see the relationship progressing to the next stage whilst hiding a huge chuck of his life and his loo from you. He sounds like he is testing the waters to see if he can get his feet under your table and you end up paying his way.

Not sure if you are still following this thread OP, but if you are, my take is that his reluctance to bring you into his home is not that his house is a mess, or that he runs a crack den, or any other nefarious far-flung possibility mentioned.

I think he is/was afraid that his resident daughter would embarrass him by being rude to you, or him, and that as a result of her behaviour you would leave him. The easiest way to circumvent this was to keep you away from the home, or in reality, the tricky daughter.

My mother ( who luckily resides in another country) used to do that to me when she was visiting (mercifully very rarely). She used to embarrass the hell out of me by being incredibly rude to my friends dropping in for a cuppa. Oh, the subsequent rows…aside from embarrassment, it was exhausting & demoralising for me and probably quite entertaining for her. She is mental and her behaviour was indefensible. But she is also my mother 😢. Hence, I simply stopped having friends coming round whilst she was visiting.

The crucial difference is: women find it much easier to articulate a problem then men. As a women, I could tell my friends the truth WHY they temporarily couldn’t visit. I was protecting them from the unhinged behaviour of my mum. And myself from yet another futile, soul destroying argument. Avoidance can be a valid strategy in certain circumstances.

But since his daughter lives at his house……he likely neither wants you insulted, nor appear weak by telling you the actual truth about his daughter’s likely behaviour. You alone know whether this man is worth making allowances for. If you feel he is, the time has come for some candour. Because you haven’t been entirely open & truthful to him either via asking “ What EXACTLY is going on here? Why am I never invited to your house - and I want the real reason not some “untidy” waffle?”. You have rather let him go. NB not an accusation of a short coming of yours. I’m just saying you BOTH have avoided to address & discuss the issue at hand openly.

There could be many reasons he is so secretive but all of them point to being toxic and deceptive, I think you know this deep down and that’s why you posted on MN to see if other people found it strange too and writing it all down has made it crystal clear for you. You are no one’s fool and you trust yourself enough to be able to spot when something doesn’t add up even in the flush of the first six months of a relationship, a lot of people would of just ignored the red flags but you op are too smart to stay entangled for long with a man who allows his daughter to run his life and you would end up being her punch bag whilst he looked away In relief he was not her target anymore.

It wouldn’t be odd to gave a couple of photos of his late wife up, that could be expected if it’s a family home, and daughter still lives there. Could it be so something as simple as he doesn’t want to remove them? A shrine would be another matter though.

What happens on Mondays and Thursday that you can’t meet then?

@Blimeyohreillythatsourgovernment I think you’ve nailed the crux of the issue. By him not being honest about his reasons for you not visiting, he thinks he’s protecting you from her. He’s passive and would be happy to bury his head in the sand and let the current arrangement continue rather than confront the underlying issue. His weakness in enabling her is his downfall here. The irony is that he’s now likely to lose you. I also, gently agree that you are too hesitant to dig down to get to the bottom of it. If you think there is a relationship here to salvage, then really push for an honest and open conversation with him. At this stage what do you have to lose? At least if you do decide to walk away, you’ll know the truth.

I was thinking about this all evening- God knows why @Swimminglikeaswan

Are you absolutely, 100% sure that his wife is dead? Have his daughter and his extended family talked about her in that way? Or are they all keeping a secret for him?

There are some marriages where they have an arrangement if one of them is disabled or terminally ill (eg MS, MND, etc) and agree they are free to date other people.

I'd want absolute proof that she had died and wasn't at home, perhaps paralysed by the stroke, and had given him permission to see other women.

This scenario would fit with the idea that he's allowed out 5 days a week.

This may sound outlandish but so is the example you gave of him driving you to a supermarket for the loo.

If it's not that, then his house is either a complete hovel, or he's a hoarder or has some other dodgy habit he'd rather not share.

In either case, he's not so nice as you think and is keeping a secret of some sort.

Also...

it's 10 years since she died. Has he spoken about any other relationships he' s had as a widower, before he met you? I'd have expected him to talk a bit about how he got back into dating and other relationships that didn't work out.

I can't help wondering if he has, and all those women were treated like you (kept out of the house) or if it's something 'new' for him to behave this way.

I can't help but be suspicious based on my own experience of a man who said he was separated and created a very plausible double life.

Only a problem if he actually owns the house though…

I imagine guilt, sadness and a lot of stress then in that house, he might be over compensating for the loss of their mother. Who knows but if he/his daughter arent ready to let a new partner in the house, they may never be ready. You wont be able to change this dynamic very easily or it will take a very long time and a lot of commitment, which is not fair on you. You arent their therapist.

I don't know why there are an odd few posters giving the OP a pasting. You do know that women can and are financially independent? And women can enforce boundaries and wishes for what they want in a partnership in the future?

The DD sounds freaky. But the partner / dad needs to get better at saying no, he's enabling her

This ^ Well done, @Swimminglikeaswan for telling him you need a break while you recover from surgery, aka consider your options! Let's see how gutted he feels, if he sends flowers or otherwise shows more interest in you than merely obtaining free hotel style accommodation.

Without the house situation other red flags are 'Future Faking' and 'Love Bombing' - wanting to spend the rest of his life with OP in such a sshort space of time? Spending so much time at hers so early on?

This is v pushy/red flag behaviour. I suggest he has had many such situationships in the past - and his full-on 'behaviour' is for him to extract aas much as possible from the relationship before he is outed.

He is also dishonest, disrespectful and inauthentic.

Thats before you even look at his values, parenting etc which are lacking and self serving before the wife died....you have raised two independent DC who are younger than his DD....so your core values are not aligned. This will continue to jar. Dont waste your time and emotional energy on this one - the DD will always win.

My great grandmother died well before WW1, mid 40s and very suddenly. A range (double figures) children between adult and tiny. There was a family legend that her widower remarried almost immediately, in unseemly haste and there was a definite status demarcation between his first and second family. The children of family 1 all named their eldest daughters after her (confusing but fair enough) and insisted that basically a shrine to her, with a portrait, candles and flowers was maintained at all times. It fell to wife 2 to do this.

It was only while doing the family history I discovered that gt grandfather actually remarried nearly 5 years after his first wifes death. I don't know why my otherwise stolid, normal and sensible rellies behaved in such a loopy way but felt great sympathy for wife 2 in all this. When I was widowed at exactly the same age gt grandfather was I had no truck whatever with anyone telling me I wasn't doing widowing right, too.

OP, I think the issue here is ultimately the boyfriend who for whatever reason can't/won't assert normal rights and boundaries and takes the easy option of a comfy nest with you. You are avoiding a world of pain in not going further with this IMO, because if he won't even let you use the loo, the chance of a proper joint home in the future looks very remote.

Thank you!
I haven't avoided the topic with him lovely! Have brought it up at intervals whilst being conscious of not rushing him, it's got to six months and i decided that at this point it had gone from giving him time to complete bullshit!

Nice to see you're still reading @Swimminglikeaswan

Hope you're doing okay after the op- was it major?

Can you maybe consider the point I made earlier- are you 100% sure his wife has died?

Has he dated since she died 10 years ago? Has he spoken of any serious-ish relationships before he met you?

I'd be surprised if he's lived a completely single life for 10 years ( men usually - but not always -want to replace a women asap and statistically move on much faster after divorce or bereavement.)

I wonder if there is a pattern to never allowing anyone into his home?

Thank you!